Doug Allyn: The Best American Mystery Stories 2000

“The Outlaws?”

“Yeah, toward the end, our band developed a biker following. They adopted us, like mascots. Which gives you some idea how far down we were. I never ran with those guys, but Bobby did. By their standards, he was a celebrity. So they shared their dope with him, and sometimes women. He and Vern were talking about going on a run that weekend. It was late summer, August, I think. I didn’t care where they were going, I just wanted them gone. And now I want you gone.”

“I understand and—”

“Don’t say thanks, Mr. Axton. Just say goodbye.”

It could have been worse. Bobby could have been running with the Manson family when he disappeared. The Mountain Outlaws, a.k.a. the Mounts, aren’t the wildest dogs in the murky underworld of Motown motorcycle gangs, but they’re close to it.

With over a hundred members, a private clubhouse, and their own bar, they’re well-off by biker standards. But they’re not a collection of misunderstood romantics.

The Mounts take the Outlaw half of their name seriously. They’re major players in the amphetamine trade; they hire out as freelance muscle and drug couriers for the Five Families in Saginaw. The hard-core leaders are all ex-cons, and most of them are speed freaks to boot, the human equivalent of wolverines with hyperaggressive tendencies.

I’d met a few Mounts over the years, mostly when I bounced them out of various nightclubs I’d been running. Couldn’t remember whether I’d made any lasting enemies. Hoped not.

For once, my road-burned face wasn’t a drawback. When I wandered into the Mountain Lounge, the Outlaws’ stomping grounds, I looked like I belonged. Almost.

It was an ordinary neighborhood bar — dim, two pool tables, a few pinball machines, and a jukebox against the wall. Formica tables carved with initials and obscenities.

The odd points were subtle but telling. High, narrow windows offered light but no entry, and the only doors were reinforced steel with hinged cross-braces. One second after they slammed shut, you’d have better luck trying to break in through the wall. And no way out at all.

Early afternoon, the place was nearly deserted. A couple of bikers were shooting pool while a buddy kibitzed. Four more, at a table near the jukebox, were playing euchre.

The bartender was a scrawny burnout, one-forty tops, scruffy brown hair styled with pruning shears, tattooed arms, watery eyes. He looked like a punk any high-school jock could mop the floor with. But if he was tending bar in a place like this...

I ordered a Bud Light. He made no move to get it.

“You’re not from around here.”

“Nope. But my beer is. It’s in the cooler behind you.”

“So it is.” He reached into the cooler, retrieved a can, and slammed it down on the bar with a bang. “Whoa, don’t open that, pal, it’ll spray. Take it with you. Drink it down the road.”

“Can’t do that. Thing is, I’m looking for a guy. Not one of yours. A guy named Penn who used to hang with a Mount called Little Vern.” I didn’t catch the signal but suddenly I had a pool player on each side of me, still holding their cue sticks.

“Can’t help ya,” the bartender said, his eyes locked on mine. “Try the phone book. Might be a Little Vern in there.”

“Or try Forest Lawn,” one of the card players said, standing up, stretching. “That’s where Vern is. Take him a flower. He probably doesn’t get many. You’re Axton, right?”

I turned to face him. He looked vaguely familiar but they all did, like wolves from the same pack. “Do I know you?”

“Not exactly. You threw me out of the Thirteenth Hour Club once.”

“Could be. I worked there. You sore about it?”

He eyed me a moment, his face unreadable. He was taller than the others, pitted face, a leather Harley hat. And I was one second from the emergency ward. Until he smiled, showing broken teeth.

“Hell, you did me a favor, bro. I was ready to beat the bejesus out of a mama who wasn’t worth the jail time. Maybe I owe you one. Why are you lookin’ for Vern?”

“To ask him about a guy he ran with. Bobby Penn? Singer? Had a band called the Badmen?”

“Penn. Yeah, I remember that loser. Goes back a ways.”

“To when?”

“I don’t know. Seven, eight years ago. Vern brought him in, thought he was some kinda hotshot superstar just because he played in a band. Vern wasn’t too bright, which is why he’s dead. Passed on a hill. Met a cattle truck head-on.”

“Sorry to hear it. What about Penn?”

“Last time I saw him he was crawlin’ toward that door.” “Crawling?”

“Maybe Vern thought he was special, but he was just another junkie mooch to the rest of us. He got crossways of somebody, got decked, a few guys did the boogie on his sorry ass. Nothin’ heavy. Like I said, he crawled out.”

“What was the beef about?”

“Who knows? It don’t take much for an outsider to get stomped in here. Probably just pushed his luck.”

I didn’t push mine. Pushed off instead. Headed out into a gray, overcast afternoon. After the dingy twilight of the bar the air seemed especially sweet. Sometimes just being alive is enough.

But the feeling only lasted seven or eight miles, then I realized I had no idea where I was heading.

The road goes on forever, but my hunt for Bobby Penn had zeroed out. The computer search had nothing current, no driver’s license, no Social Security payments or welfare checks, no cars registered in his name. Nothing for the past seven years.

If Penn was a straight john I’d assume he was dead or in a witness protection program. But the music business runs by different rules. Club owners pay under the table to duck taxes, players bunk with pals to avoid having a legal residence, singers change their names for professional reasons. Or no reason at all.

Seven years ago Bobby Penn hit rock bottom. Then what? A name change, a fresh start? Not likely. His name had some market value because his records were still selling a little.

A career change? Also unlikely. All he knew was the music business... and there it was. The answer.

Bobby Penn might be a loser, but he was also a professional musician. Whose records were still selling.

I drove aimlessly for a while, mulling over how that played out. But the bottom line was: I didn’t know quite enough.

I killed an hour by driving into Detroit Metro Airport to ditch my car in long-term parking and rent an anonymous gray Chevy. Then I drove to Pontiac, parked down the street from the state employees’ lot, and waited the half-hour until five.

Ben Marino came out promptly, fired up his van, and pulled out of the lot. I gave him a two-block lead, then followed. In the first quarter mile I knew he wasn’t headed home. He seemed to be trailing a car that had left the lot just ahead of him, a guess he confirmed by turning left on Logan into the upscale Pinewood subdivision. Both cars pulled into the same driveway in front of a gray-brick town house.

I started to turn off, to avoid being spotted, but changed my mind when a miniature dervish came sprinting out of the house to throw herself into Marino’s arms. He was swinging the child around as I cruised past. It had been years since I’d seen Bobby Penn, but I had no doubt the girl was his daughter. I’d always thought Krystal looked like an angel down on her luck. Her daughter looked like the real thing, baby Cupid in blue denim bibs.

I drove on a few blocks, then pulled into a driveway, turned around, and parked in the shadow of a tall hedge. I couldn’t see the house, but I could still see the rear of Marino’s van. Rather than risk a confrontation here, I decided to wait until he left. It wasn’t long.

As I was settling in to wait, a figure suddenly stepped through the hedge, leaned down, and tapped on the passenger window of my rental Chevy. Marino. And he was tapping with the muzzle of a 9mm automatic.